Digital platforms are increasingly conflicted spaces, where women, LGBTQ+ people, and members of various minorities are disproportionately targeted by hate actors. As a result, their everyday experiences of being and communicating on (overwhelmingly male-coded) platforms differ from those of (cisgender, white) men. Gender as an analytical category thus plays a significant role in understanding the dynamics of online misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. Though some research has been done, there is a dearth of scholarship on gender as it relates to mis- and disinformation. Gender has been explored as a content category in misinformation narratives and campaigns, such as the notion of “gender ideology” in Russian propaganda in Europe (Sata 2021, Graff and Korolczuk 2021), and in conservative law and policymaking in the United States (Tripodi, 2022, 38). Attention has also been paid to the ways in which the production and reception of misinformation are gendered, for example how female influencers produce misinformation that targets their female audiences (Baker 2022) or how different types of narratives are perceived differently by men and women (Almenar et al 2021). This panel invites further research into gender and misinformation, broadly conceived, exploring what gendered misinformation and disinformation that targets cisgender women and gender minorities looks like in practice, in a variety of global contexts.

The papers included in this panel explore misinformation through the lens of gender in a variety of ways, including by introducing novel feminist methodological approaches; offering definitions of what “gendered misinformation,” might refer to, and how it functions distinctly; investigating the rhetorical and epistemic aspects of platformized neoliberal, white, and conservative feminisms; and asking what feminized mis- and disinformation looks like in practice. By covering examples from different geographical contexts (the United States, Central Europe, and the Middle East) and a wide range of topics (the anti-abortion movement, misogynistic deepfakes, gendered health misinformation, and feminized, fandom-adjacent conspiracy theories), this panel aspires to open a debate about defining gendered mis- and disinformation as an interdisciplinary research field.

The first paper, “The Use of Digital Audio and Visual Disinformation and Malinformation Weapons in Smear Campaigns Against Women,” explores the role of visual and auditory deepfakes in the spread of gendered misinformation. The paper addresses the phenomenon from multiple angles, using a framework of visual ethics to explore the perspectives and practices of both the creators of sexist deepfake videos, as well as the women affected by them. The second paper, “Affordances and visual misogyny: Towards feminist approaches in visual methods,” also focuses on the visual, introducing the notion of platformed visual misogyny through four case studies that illustrate a new, feminist affordance theory approach to visual methods, useful for addressing hate content in on various platforms. The third paper, “‘Having It All’ in the Absence of Abortion: Anti-Abortion Pop Feminism and the Pitfalls of Platformed Neoliberal Feminism,” explores the dynamics of multiple platformized feminisms, specifically the ways in which the anti-abortion movement has successfully appropriated neoliberal feminist rhetorical strategies The paper details how the meritocratic logics at the heart of neoliberal feminism have both enabled large-scale movements like #MeToo, and continually reified a corporatized, universalized experience of wealthy white cisgender womanhood. The fourth paper, “Are You a Gaylor or a Hetlor?: Epistemic Boundary Work, Conspiracy Theories of Queerness, and White Feminism in Online Taylor Swift Fan Cultures,” examines the fan cultures that have sprung up around a singular emblem of white neoliberal feminism, Taylor Swift. This paper questions whether the epistemic boundaries drawn by so-called “Gaylors” (fans who claim the singer is closeted) subvert Swift’s hyper-capitalist white feminism, or reinforce it through tacit endorsement of her unspoken and unconfirmed alleged queerness. The fifth and final paper, “My Body is My Sanctuary: Influencers and Gendered Health Disinformation,” investigates another example of the repackaging of neoliberal feminist logics: women Instagram influencers’ weaponization of the notion of female empowerment to create semi-closed spaces for political deliberation on the platform and, by doing so, successfully bridge the gap between fringe and mainstream disinformation and conspiracy content.

These papers demonstrate the breadth and depth of this new subfield of mis- and disinformation studies. Taken together, they demonstrate that gender is a necessary and often overlooked analytical category when considering the spread and staying power of disinformation and conspiracy theories. As papers on this panel variously introduce new concepts, including gendered misinformation, platformed visual misogyny, feminist affordance theory, feminized disinformation, platformized feminisms, and white feminist conspiracy theories in several global contexts, this panel will serve as a jumping off point for further work that is necessary to define these novel concepts fully and establish the state of the field.